Halsey Recalls Going On Stage Hours After A Miscarriage

Halsey opens up about a troubling time during her initial surge to super stardom.

Halsey opens up about a troubling time during her initial surge to super stardom.

Halsey has had a hell of a year or two. A couple of public outbursts, some bizarre interviews and lackluster performances appear to be the aftermath of some traumatic experiences the 21-year-old dealt with before releasing her debut studio album Badlands.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the "Colors" singer remembered a dark day where her team pressured her to perform hours after suffering a miscarriage. Halsey told the interviewer she read a previous report published in RS in April about Planned Parenthood and a miscarriage the writer had had.
"I felt like I was suffocating reading that article," she tells the interviewer. "Like someone put a shopping bag over my head. I didn't want to meet you at all. I was really terrified of you, because I knew as soon as I saw you, I was going to need to tell you that last year on tour I got pregnant." Then, at a breathless pace, she's describing being in a hotel room in Chicago before Badlands even came out, back when her whole career could have easily been ruined ("What happens? Do I lose my record deal? Do I lose everything? Or do I keep [the pregnancy]? What are the fans going to think? What are the moms going to think? What is the Midwest going to think? What's fucking everyone going to think?"), and before she can even decide what to do, she's screaming on a hotel bed, bloody, naked from the waist down, hours before she's to go onstage. "I'm like, 'I have to cancel this show!' And everyone's kind of like, 'Well, it's Vevo LIFT, and it's 3 million impressions, so ...' No one knew what to do."

Halsey said to get through the performance, she wore adult diapers and took two Percocet before hopping on stage. "It's the angriest performance that I've ever done in my life," she continued. "That was the moment of my life where I thought to myself, 'I don't feel like a fucking human being anymore.' This thing, this music, Halsey, whatever it is that I'm doing, took precedence and priority over every decision that I made regarding this entire situation from the moment I found out until the moment it went wrong. I walked offstage and went into the parking lot and just started throwing up."
Halsey isn't sure why she had a miscarriage, but blames herself for it.
"I beat myself up for it because I think that the reason it happened is just the lifestyle I was living. I wasn't drinking. I wasn't doing drugs. I was fucking overworked – in the hospital every couple of weeks because I was dehydrated, needing bags of IVs brought to my greenroom. I was anemic, I was fainting. My body just broke the fuck down."
She admits no one forced her to perform, but there was an inherent pressure to carry on. "I had a choice," but regrets it.
The writer describes Halsey looking off into the distance during their interview at Central Park – watching a few children playing. "I want to be a mom more than I want to be a pop star. More than I want to be anything in the world." Later, she says, "I'm really scared of being alone. I'm not trying to upset you," she says softly. "I'm really sorry."